The bell rang again, and the two fighters got up and started circling the center of the ring. Groves was gleaming with sweat, but otherwise looked like he was raring to go. The other guy, however, was holding his hands a little lower, his shoulders were sagging, and halfway through the round he was throwing wild punches that failed to connect with anything.
“Oh yeah, Groves is gonna take him out,” the West Pointer said.
And true to the prediction, Groves waited no more than thirty seconds before moving in like a locomotive and unleashing a sudden volley of blows that sent his opponent not only against the ropes, but unexpectedly through them. The guy landed on the mat, spitting out his mouth guard and huffing for breath, while a pal helped him off with his helmet.
“Jesus, Groves,” the guy said, “take it easy.” He took another breath. “It’s not like there’s a purse.”
Groves spat out his own mouthpiece, and said, “Gotta fight like there is, Lieutenant. You always gotta fight like there is.”
Groves separated the ropes and stepped down from the ring. He was sitting on the bench, putting his gear back in his bag, when Slater left the corner of the gym and said, “So, is this your idea of downtime?”
The sergeant didn’t have to look up. “Hey, Frank — I’ve been expecting you.”
“That was a nice fight.”
Groves snorted and vigorously rubbed a towel over the top of his sweaty, shaved head.
Slater sat down on the bench. “When are you supposed to deploy?”
“Next Friday, with the Eighth Battalion.”
“Where?”
“Does it matter?” Groves said. “It’ll be 110 in the shade, with all the sand you can eat.”
Slater nodded as a couple of other guys clambered into the ring. “I don’t see how I can compete with that,” he joked. “Sounds like a regular resort.”
Groves zipped up his bag, then turned toward Slater, who saw now that his lip was split.
“I got your messages,” Groves said, “but I still don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
“Why you’re going out on another job — and in Alaska, of all places — when you’ve just been busted from the corps.”
“I’m going strictly as an epidemiologist. No Army this time, just civilian AFIP.”
“And do they know that you still get the shakes from the malaria? Since you’re the one who brought up the idea of taking time off, don’t you think you need to take a nice long furlough yourself?”
“I never know what to do with it,” Slater said, in what even he considered the understatement of the year. “And at least it won’t be the Middle East this time. Nobody’s shooting at anybody. It’s strictly medical research.”
“Then why do you need me?” the sergeant asked.
“Because I need someone I can trust to help me run the operation. In one week, we’re going to be off-loading roughly three tons of equipment on an island that I’m told is nearly inaccessible. There’s no place for a plane to land, no safe harbor for a ship of any size. We’re going to have to bring in the supplies by chopper, a lot like we did in Afghanistan, and we’ve got to hit the ground running.”
Groves blew out a breath and looked up as two new fighters feinted and jabbed.
“Why now? Why this time of year?”
“Why not?” Slater said, “It’s the holiday season — where would you rather be than the Arctic?”
“It’s dark there. Almost all the time. Anybody think of that?”
“Yes, of course we have,” Slater replied. Indeed, artificial illumination was one of the first things he had entered into the budget proposal — klieg lamps, ramp lights, and backup generators to make sure they never went down. When dealing with viral material, inert or not, a lighting malfunction could be as dangerous as a refrigeration failure. “But the job can’t wait.”
One of the fighters in the ring landed a low blow, and the other one complained loudly.
“Walk it off!” Groves shouted.
The match resumed, and Slater waited. In spite of all the sergeant’s objections, Slater knew his man. The call to duty in Afghanistan would be strong, but the plea from his old major would be stronger. Groves’s sense of loyalty wouldn’t allow him to let Slater go off on his own, much less after such a personal appeal.
“I’ve already got my orders,” Groves finally said without taking his eyes from the ring. The two fighters were in a clinch, heads butting like rams. “Who’s gonna get my deployment changed?”
“Don’t sweat it. Everything will be taken care of.” Slater put out his hand and said, “Don’t forget to pack warm.”
“Yeah,” the sergeant replied, taking his hand resignedly, “I’ll do that.”
All in all, Slater thought, it had been a successful day. What he needed now was a good, solid night’s rest. Looking down the suburban street, he saw a door open, a dog come out and lift its leg on a tree, then scamper back inside. Still feeling drowsy from the drugs, he heated up the car, then closed his eyes, for what he planned would be a ten-minute nap before driving the rest of the way home. But when he awoke, stiff and sore in his seat, he heard a light tapping on his window. When he opened his eyes, Martha was standing there in a jogging suit, a key in her hand.
Slater, suitably mortified, touched the button and the window rolled down.
“Please don’t tell me you’ve been here all night,” she said.
Slater glanced at his watch. It was five thirty in the morning. A gray dawn was breaking. Christ, he wondered, was he becoming narcoleptic from all the drug interactions?
“Don’t tell me you jog at this hour,” he said, hoping to strike a tone that would mask his embarrassment.
Martha shook her head ruefully. “You want to come in and warm up?”
“I don’t think that would be such a good idea.”
“No,” she said, “it wouldn’t.”
There was an awkward moment before Martha said, “I’m glad the court-martial went as well as it did.”
“All things considered,” he said, “I got lucky.”
“So, are you posted here in the States again?”
“Not for long.”
“Where are you going next?”
“It’s classified,” he said, and they both smiled. They had had almost this identical conversation so many times in the past that to be having it again now — on a chilly suburban street, with Martha in her jogging suit and Slater slumped in his car — struck them both as absurd.
For a moment, they held each other’s gaze, with a thousand things to say but all of them said before. For Slater, it was like looking at a vision of what might have been, the life he could have led — and right now, with his back feeling like a plank and his legs half-asleep and his brain in a muddle — it didn’t look so bad. He had to keep himself from lifting one cold hand through the window simply to caress her cheek for a moment. As part of the annual exam for field epidemiologists deployed on high-stress missions, an Army psychiatrist had recently told him there was a notable lack of intimacy in his life. “You can’t run from it forever,” he’d said. “Given what you face on the job, you’re going to need some human anchor, some safe harbor, in your life.” After a pause, the shrink had added, “Or else you can find yourself drifting off the emotional map and into uncharted waters.”
Slater knew he was right, because look where he had just washed up. “Well, okay then,” he said, as if he and his ex had just concluded the most casual confab. Turning the key in the ignition, he said, “It’s been great catching up.”
“Yeah,” she said, playfully batting at his window as he raised it, “don’t be a stranger.” She had a bittersweet smile on her face, and for a second or two he wondered if she, too, had been running through that same little might-have-been scenario.